I came into teaching through a non-traditional, backdoor route – through a graduate degree in counselor education and through being an adventure therapist, whereby I took at-risk youth on extended wilderness trips. There have been a plethora of lessons I learned through these experiences that have served me well as a teacher. As part of […]
Implementing Maker, STEM, STEAM Education In order to prevent STEM and maker education from becoming a flavor of the month, there needs to be specific strategies provided to educators on how to embed STEM and maker activities into their curriculum. A good number of educators have not received training on how to integrate activities into […]
The Game Jam was developed for and offered through the Santa Fe Public Schools’ SAGE (Services for Advanced and Gifted Education) Program although any school or youth group could enter. The game categories were: Board, Card, Action, and Video games. The criteria used to judge the games: The contest was conceived and developed by Steve […]
As the final project of the school year, I asked a group of my gifted 4th through 6th graders to design and prototype a new type of shoe. In a recent post from Idea U, Why Everyone Should Prototype (Not Just Designers), Chris Nyffeler, IDEO Executive Design Director, discussed the purpose and value of prototyping: […]
I wrote a post earlier this year entitled, Authentic Learning Experiences. Some of the characteristics of authentic learning I identified are summarized in this graphic: The Task Learners, 4th through 6th graders in my gifted education language arts class, were given the task of composing and then recording their own I Have a Dream speeches. […]
